Texas Gov. Rick Perry does not support a petition for the Lone Star State to secede from the union.

But a lot of people do.

The online petition asking the federal government to allow Texas to withdraw from the U.S. following President Barack Obama's reelection has nearly 100,000 signatures. It appears on a section of a White House website called We The People" and cites economic difficulties due to the federal government's inability to cut spending.

Supporters suggest that secession would protect Texans' standard of living and "re-secure their rights and liberties."

Many of the comments to this article said that the supporters would be tried for treason. I say no. After the Civil War, not even Jefferson Davis was tried for treason. The North was afraid that they would lose in court what they had won on the battlefield.

It’s not treasonous to peacably petition the government for secession.

If Texas goes, it needs to take a bunch of other states with it because having it out of the Union would mean permanent Democrat control of the remaining 49 states into eternity. I’d like to see the South as a whole peel off.

Yes. We have a right to seek independence and freedom from this evil,tyrannical, communist regime in Washington DC. We have to secede.

Anybody here think that this evil communist Obama will not try to be dictator for life? All Stalinists do this as Chavez of venezuela did. Chavez,Sadamm Husein had elections too. Obama marxist did better than Chavez and Saddam in many counties in Ohio etc.

4
posted on 11/15/2012 9:47:35 AM PST
by rurgan
(give laws an expiration date:so the congress has to review every 4 years to see if needed)

The small but densely populated Obama loving areas of the country should be turned over to the Red Chinese as special administrative regions until they pay off the debt Obama ran up. Without any help form the rest of us.

7
posted on 11/15/2012 9:49:55 AM PST
by Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)

1) Hold a referendum. If a huge majority want to secede, I don’t see why they can’t be allowed to peacefully do so. After all, countries like the Czech Republic and Slovakia did so peacefully. Singapore seceded from Malaysia over 50 years ago and both countries are thriving.

2) There’s a new entity that just voted to join the union — PUERTO RICO.

So, the USA will still have 50 states and the flag will not change.

3) For that matter, if Obama really wants 57 states, I can see the following scenarios : Divide California into 3 states. Allow Long Island ( which has an existing secession movement ) to secede from new York State. Divide Pennsylvania into West Penn and East Penn (Where Philly is located ). Heck, if we can have a West Virginia and a North and South Dakota and North and South Carolina, I don’t see how we can’t have something similar elsewhere.

IIRC, Texas at the time was a sovereign Republic that freely agreed to annexation by popular vote of its citizens.

It was not a recognized US Possession as a territory. This is much different than the circumstances of incorporation of the other states. It seems to me that which is entered into freely, can be exited freely.

Secede from the Union? Some in Tennessee say aye http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/nov/13/secede-from-the-union-some-in-tennessee-say-aye/?comments_id=243294620 States Now Working on Process to Secede from the Unionhttp://au.ibtimes.com/articles/405077/20121115/20-states-now-working-process-secede-union.htm#.UKUqf4ZXLIUThousands call for Georgia to secedehttp://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2012/nov/15/thousands-call-georgia-secede/

When are we going to consider that there are two Americas and settle the problem once and for all?

America's Elite Class New Normal:

I remember.

The 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brats were celebrated in the establishment MSM as the most intelligent generation ever!. They are now arguably that very establishment that praised them and they hold themselves and their ideological issue in even higher regard.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. [it won't fall but it] will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

13
posted on 11/15/2012 9:53:28 AM PST
by WilliamofCarmichael
(If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)

1. The Constitution does not prohibit secession. The legal argument boils down to this: 1. The Constitution does not mention secession. In any way. 2. The Tenth Amendment says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Now I don’t have a Ph.D. in logic, but even I can figure out that if something is not mentioned, then, according to the 10th Amendment, it isn’t prohibited to the states. In fact, it is the opposite of prohibited. Now I know that the Supreme Court says no secession allowed, which means the federal government has declared that you can’t escape the federal government. Gee, that’s no shocker. So, sure, if you believe that the federal government should be the last word on what the federal government can and cannot do, then that’s fine. Just don’t pretend that we have constitutional government. If the federal government gets to decide what the Constitution says, then the Constitution is nothing more than a suggestion box for the feds.
2. The Civil War did not “settle” the issue. Well, it settled the issue in the way that I settled the matter of ownership of that Steve Garvey baseball card when I beat up that other kid and took it. (OK, that never happened, but you get my point.) Secession was never settled beyond the federal government’s assertion that it has the right to kill people who try to exercise their rights protected by the Tenth Amendment.

3. Secession is treason/unAmerican/craaaazy/for slavers only. Prior to the confederacy, there were some slaveowners who got together and seceded from their government. They were called Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. If you’re opposed to the secession of 1776, then that’s fine, you might be consistent on this issue, but if you’re one of these right-wing pundits who thinks the Declaration of Independence should be read aloud every July 4, and then says that secession is nutso, you might try actually reading that document you profess to love.
The Declaration makes a simple argument:
1. Humans have rights from the Creator
2. Governments exist to secure those rights (a debatable assertion but we’ll roll with it.)
3. When the government fails to secure those rights, we can ditch it and start our own government.
That’s pretty much all it says. If you thought that was true in 1776, when tax rates were 1% and there was no such thing as a the EPA or the FBI or the IRS, why is it not true now? Because we’re so much more free now? And, no, the Declaration did not say that the government is free to violate rights as long as people get to vote on it.
The Declaration establishes that there’s no such thing as treason, and a free government requires the assumption of just secession.

Thus the whole Revolution [of 17751783] turned upon, asserted, and, in theory, established, the right of each and every man, at his discretion, to release himself from the support of the government under which he had lived. And this principle was asserted, not as a right peculiar to themselves, or to that time, or as applicable only to the government then existing; but as a universal right of all men, at all times, and under all circumstances

Sam Houston was pretty clear on the subject:"I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survive the ruin of this glorious Union."

Like I've said before, at this point this is merely mental exercise. In the near future, who knows.

Anyway... Not Florida and Virginia. I'd say Oklahoma, Louisiana, maybe Arkansas, maybe Mississippi and New Mexico, although the poverty in Mississippi would potentially be a drag on the new nation. Tennessee is just too far--no way would the government allow a new country to reach that deep into its heartland and partially sever the old US. The new country would also have to claim a fair chunk of the guld for the oil and such. A strong alliance with Alaska (hey, if Texas why not Alaska, its plenty big and far enough away) would also be good, allowing access to northern areas.

It was illegal and high treason to rebel against the lawful, legal authority of the Crown of England under King George III and to defy his edicts and laws.

It was an even greater act of sedition and treason to suggest that the Colonies were of right, ought to be free and independent states from the Crown. We would define that today as secession. The Founders seceded from the Union established with England for over 150 years before July 2nd 1776.

It was settled by our Founders who took a risk of death for treason to declare that the Crown no longer had any legal authority over them. Once the legal authority was imposing tyranny and usurping the rights of liberty granted by God, the prince no longer had authority under God to rule over a free people.

Once the State/Crown - made itself higher than Gods Laws, then the people are no longer obligated to submit to such authority - and have, by right the duty to throw off such government and secure new guards for their liberty.

Secession is what our Founders initiated. It was a risk with a low chance of success - but it was decided by enough Godly and principled men that liberty was more important than life in chains and risked death to secure Gods authority as sovereign over their lives.

So why should we be any different just because the federal tyranny says, like the King of England, that Independence from their rule and authority is treason and unlawful?

If we would die free men, then their courts, congress and His Heinous Obama - have no power over us that we who are under the Law of Natures God, are required to submit to.

All they have is the ability to impose their tyranny by brute force and punishment. If we submit to such authority then we have broken the First Commandment and the Lord of Hosts is no longer our Sovereign.

If the Creator is our Sovereign - then we have as a duty to refuse, resist and not comply with those acts of tyranny being imposed by the threat of force.

If the Chinese invaded and put a gun to your head and said submit to us or else! would you cower - or resist? There is NO DIFFERENCE between a foreign enemy that would put a gun to your head and that of your family while confiscating your property - and the Domestic federal enemy who is doing the same damn thing.

They have no power over a free people except that which the people willingly surrender to them. Their laws, orders, decrees and rules are no longer of any authority over a people they intend to subjugate.

I agree about Alaska: it would be a natural fit for a new union. One thing to remember about poor states like Ole Miss: a lot of the poor are blacks who would be upset about secession because they want to live under a black Prez. Give them the option to load up their stuff and head on up north. They could repopulate Detroit, for example. Then whites in Mississippi would be left to join the new Union.

"...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

LONG OVERDUE.

30
posted on 11/15/2012 10:07:47 AM PST
by DTogo
(High time to bring back the Sons of Liberty !!)

I haven't seen any polling on the issue, but I would be shocked if even 10% of Texans want to sever their bonds with their country, the USA. Texans are as patriotic today as they ever were and very few will become associated with any movement predicated on hatred of the USA. I just hope that this anti-USA secession talk doesn't tarnish the patriotic credentials of the conservative movement.

Yes, that is the catch 22 conservatives always find themselves in. As a conservative do you stick it out in a liberal state to have a voice, or do you flee, but then leave even less conservatives in that state?

As I see it, in time, as hispanics outnumber whites in Texas, that Texas will go Democrat anyways.

The idea of states seceding now is pure fantasy, and an unpleasant one, at that.

But if you wish to indulge in fantasy, why not pick some better ones? How about expelling states? I don’t know whether this is possible, but perhaps it could be done as a conspiracy.

For example, residents of NJ could secede, and then move out, leaving this sicko state alone, and inhabited only by Obama-supporting zombies. I could enjoy this fantasy for hours at a time.

Another good one: West Virginia was formed in direct violation of the Constitution, which provides that the borders and territory of a state cannot be changed without its consent. So, we get WV and VA to reunite. Presto: no more battleground state, but one that would have gone solidly for Romney.

Another: Force (or trick) the New England states to unite into one state, and (presto!) only two corrupt, lying, Obama-supporting senators, instead of the present 10 or 12. The Senate would be Republican.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.